The Regency Era, 1831-40

The three regents that ruled in the young emperor's name from 1831 to
1840 witnessed a period of turmoil as local factions struggled to gain
control of their provinces and to keep the masses in line. Out of
desperation to weaken the radical appeals for federalism, republicanism,
and hostility toward the Portuguese, and to protect against contrary
calls for Pedro I's restoration, the regency in Rio de Janeiro gave
considerable power to the provinces in 1834. Brazil took on the
appearance of a federation of local pátrias (autonomous
centers of regional power) with loose allegiance to the Rio de Janeiro
government, whose function was to defend them from external attack and
to maintain order and balance among them. The government's ability to
carry out that function was impaired, however, by the low budgets
allowed the army and navy, and by the creation of a National Guard,
whose officers were local notables determined to protect their private
and regional interests. The rebellions, riots, and popular movements
that marked the next years did not spring as much from economic misery
as from attempts to share in the prosperity stemming from North Atlantic
demand for Brazil's exports.

Many of the disturbances were so fleeting they were all but
forgotten. For example, in Rio de Janeiro alone there were five
uprisings in 1831 and 1832. Another eight of the more famous revolts in
the 1834-49 period included the participation of lower-class people,
Indians, free and runaway blacks, and slaves, which accounts for their
often fierce suppression. Republican objectives were apparent in some of
these revolts, such as the War of the Farrapos (ragamuffins), also known
as the Farroupilha Rebellion (1835-45), in Santa Catarina and Rio Grande
do Sul. Others, such as the Cabanagem in Pará in 1835-37, the Sabinada
in Salvador in 1837-38, the Balaiada Rebellion in Maranhao in 1838-41,
and the ones in Minas Gerais and São Paulo in 1842, were propelled
simultaneously by antiregency and promonarchial sentiments. Such unrest
dispels the notion that the history of state formation in Brazil was
peaceful. Instead, it shows the confrontation between the national
government and the splintering pátrias , which would continue
in varying degrees for the next century.

Pedro I's death from tuberculosis in 1834 had sapped the
restorationist impulse and removed the glue that held uneasy political
allies together. With the regency attempting to suppress simultaneous
revolts in the South and North, it could not easily reassert its
supremacy over the remaining provinces. Brazil could well have split
apart in those years. It did not for three reasons. First, the military
was reorganized as an instrument of national unity under the leadership
of Luís Alves de Lima e Silva, who was ennobled as the Duke of Caxias
(Duque de Caxias) and who would later be proclaimed Patron of the
Brazilian Army. Second, the specter of slave revolt and social
disintegration had become all too real. And third, the "vision of
Brazil as a union of autonomous pátrias ," in Roderick J.
Barman's phrase, was replaced by the vision of Brazil as a nation-state.
Rather than risk their fortunes and lives, the elites, longing for a
focus of loyalty, identity, and authority, rallied around the
boy-emperor, who ascended the throne on July 18, 1841, at age fifteen
instead of the constitutionally specified age of eighteen. Thus, the
second empire was born in the hope that it would be an instrument of
national unity, peace, and prosperity.